XPost: soc.history.what-if, alt.history.what-if   
   From: aspqrz@tpg.com.au   
      
   On Sun, 08 Dec 2019 22:36:27 -0500, PhantomView   
    wrote:   
      
   >On Mon, 09 Dec 2019 10:32:25 +1100, Phil McGregor    
   >wrote:   
   >   
   >>On Sat, 07 Dec 2019 21:12:24 -0600, Ned Latham   
   >> wrote:   
   >>   
   >>>> I am at a bit of a loss to explain why Rome missed the boat.   
   >>>   
   >>>Christianity stultified it.   
   >>   
   >>Christianity had little or nothing to do with it.   
   >>   
   >>The real problem was economic ... slavery.   
   >>   
   >>By the early medieval period slavery was gone (or going) almost   
   >>everywhere in the Mediterranean world and its peripheries ... replaced   
   >>by Serfdom, which was more efficient, economically speaking, and that,   
   >>too, was being replaced, albeit slowly, by the end of the medieval   
   >>period in most places.   
   >>   
   >>Slavery made mechanical and industrial innovation uneconomic in the   
   >>early, usually expensive, stages.   
   >   
   >   I have heard that proposition before, and to a degree   
   >   it may be a factor. However the most common impetus   
   >   for new and better sci/tech is MILITARY power. Rome   
   >   always wanted that, even after they went Christian.   
   >   
   >   No, there was something else holding back the innovators.   
   >   Not sure exactly what though. I suspect the way money   
   >   and rewards and markets were organized was involved,   
   >   a structural barrier buried in the system.   
      
   True, to an extent. However, the problem was that the money, the real   
   money, was held by a landowning class (those of Senatorial status) or   
   a commercial class (the Equites) whose main aim was to make enough   
   money to buy enough land to become a member of the Senatorial Class   
   ... and there was, therefore, an inherent prejudice against anything   
   that wasn't based on agriculture or rural activities.   
      
   THAT was the main 'structural barrier.'   
      
   The think was, landholding was both profitable AND safely so for the   
   simple reason of Slavery ... innovation outside of Agriculture was   
   risky and, as noted, expensive, and uneconomic, during the early   
   stages.   
      
   You could also argue that Rome's fairly rapid expansion to a very   
   large size made the status quo, socially AND technologically, more   
   stable as, as far as 'industry' was concerned, even low productivity   
   slave workers could swamp innovation and, in any case, low   
   productivity manufacturing methods ON AN EMPIRE WIDE BASIS coupled   
   with the strategic position of the Mediterranean to transport said   
   production cheaply and almost risk free with no internal customs   
   barriers meant that, again, in the initial stages of technological   
   development the expensive tech was swamped again.   
      
   Phil   
      
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